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Reclaiming your Hope

Perhaps one of the greatest casualties that result from a difficult life situation is the loss of HOPE.  Hope is a powerful force.  According to the book of Psalms, strength and courage come from hope.  Hope keeps us going, growing, dreaming and loving.  A loss of hope is a great loss. We remember back when Mary was little and her prognosis was overwhelming, we were very short on hope.  At that time, someone gave us the verse, Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. [...]

By |2019-02-18T20:10:41-05:00February 8th, 2019|faith, General, hope, perspective, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Reclaiming your Hope
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Celebrate at “Night to Shine”!

One of our kids (not sure which one) used to have a t-shirt that said “Believe there is Good in the World”! I think it is important to both believe there is good in the world and to BE the good in the world. Sometimes, with all that is in the news lately, it is hard to always see the good that is out there. We’d like to encourage you by sharing an incredible example of “Good in the World”, especially for those of us who are parenting a child [...]

By |2019-01-31T08:25:33-05:00January 31st, 2019|General, thankful, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Celebrate at “Night to Shine”!
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Christmas Blessings and Expectations

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. We’ve all heard that song and possibly, it is the most wonderful time of the year.  It also is perhaps the most stressful time of the year for families who have a child with special needs. Worries about your child’s behavior at family gatherings, changes in routines and schedules and having your child out of school for 2 weeks can make the holidays difficult.  Couple this with the expectations of how a “perfect” Christmas should be and, well, it is easy to [...]

By |2018-12-21T07:43:13-05:00December 21st, 2018|General, holidays, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Christmas Blessings and Expectations
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Joy in the Journey

Over the past several weeks, we talked about the unique and varied challenges that face a marriage when couples are parenting a child with special needs.  We mentioned last week that couples often feel isolated, finding it hard to physically get out the door and hard to “fit in” once you get there. We’ve talked about the hurts individuals have felt because sometimes people that are close to us, who should understand our situation, often don’t.  These things are true and representative, at times, of what our lives are like; [...]

By |2018-11-08T17:39:30-05:00November 8th, 2018|happiness, joy, perspective, thankful, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Joy in the Journey
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Isolation

Well, the Hallmark Christmas movie season is upon us.  Brian, who isn’t one for movies in general, has probably never seen a Hallmark movie; but I confess, that on more than one occasion, I’ve taken my box of tissues and watched a Hallmark movie.  Of course, in a Hallmark movie everything turns out splendidly: families are reunited; true loves are rediscovered; wayward children return home and organ transplants come through at the last minute and it’s a perfect match! I truly wish all of life’s problems could be solved in [...]

By |2018-11-01T06:05:47-05:00October 31st, 2018|isolation, relationships, Uncategorized|3 Comments
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The “S” Word …

Can you believe it is our twentieth blog?  Can you also believe that we’ve done 20 blogs on marriage and we are only now getting to talk about sex?  Of course, you can.  We all know that sex is incredibly important to a marriage, but we rarely talk about it.  In fact, most of us probably talk about it face-to-face with our spouse even less.  And if it is hard to discuss, imagine how hard it is to write a blog on the subject!!!  But we risk our pride and [...]

By |2018-10-25T09:18:58-05:00October 23rd, 2018|sex, teamwork, time, Uncategorized|1 Comment
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God Gave You Mary …

Very often, someone has come up to us and said, “God gave you Mary because He must have known that you would be able to handle parenting a child with a disability,” or some variation of that statement.  While we know that people mean well and are trying to be encouraging to us, it sometimes is hard to hear.  Mostly, it is hard to hear because we respectfully disagree. We disagree in two ways.  First, and of less importance, we disagree with the statement because it seems to imply that [...]

By |2018-10-18T13:38:03-05:00October 18th, 2018|help, perspective, Uncategorized|5 Comments
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To help or not to help, that is the question!

A commonly asked questions that we hear from friends who don’t have a child with a disability is, “Should we offer to help someone when their disabled child has a need, or will offering help offend the parents?”  We generally know how we would answer that question, but this is an individual decision.  We would love to hear some feedback on this, as we think this topic might provide for an interesting conversation! Because Mary is non-verbal, she often tries to communicate her wishes and desires through her behavior, more [...]

By |2018-10-11T15:46:54-05:00October 11th, 2018|help, perspective, teamwork, thankful, Uncategorized|Comments Off on To help or not to help, that is the question!
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#6

This past summer, we had the opportunity to speak at several Joni and Friends Camps.  This camp was started by the ministry of Joni Eareckson Tada and is for families that are affected by disability. (We encourage you to check out these nationwide camps via this LINK).  We shared things that God has taught us and things we wish someone would have told us when we were first married.  Every camp has its own unique personality, but certain items always generated a lot of discussion.  Perhaps, one of our most controversial [...]

By |2018-10-03T20:53:49-05:00October 3rd, 2018|perspective, priorities, teamwork, Uncategorized|Comments Off on #6
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Letting Your Kids Grow Up.

When Mary was a little girl, she loved to watch Barney the Dinosaur.  We watched every episode and bought all of the Barney Movies.  As Mary got older, we stopped watching Barney.  We often wondered if we stopped watching because Mary lost interest or because we subconsciously decided she was too grown up for Barney. Truth be told, we struggle with seeing Mary as the 32-year-old young woman that she is. In many ways, we are still waiting for her to grow up, but she is grown up! She may [...]

By |2018-09-27T20:01:52-05:00September 27th, 2018|Uncategorized|3 Comments
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